Chapter 561: Where Feet Remain

Eirwen reached the Alder bridge as the first burning board dropped between its supports, the flame drawing a bright line through the shadow beneath the road.

She stopped at the last living root beside the approach, feeling its tremor beneath her palm while the people beyond the broken span turned toward her.

Seven children stood between the burning section and the border’s closing edge, their small group pressed close enough that she could barely see the youngest one’s shoes.

The loyalists had already withdrawn from the near supports, leaving the fire to work through the bridge behind the refugees they had trapped.

Eirwen caught a glimpse of one retreating sleeve beyond the smoke, then put the figure out of her attention as the nearest child started toward the wrong board.

"Stay where the roots are."

The child stopped with one foot raised, looking down at the thin living line beneath the sole before putting it back beside the other.

A second board fell behind him, the sound making the younger children crowd so close that the girl at the back nearly lost her balance.

Eirwen spread her fingers over the remaining root, following its living connection along the bridge’s edge to the place beneath their feet.

The sealed Court soil rested against her ribs inside its pouch, its small weight shifting when she lowered herself closer to the road.

She pressed the pouch beneath her coat before reaching farther along the root, keeping it clear of the heat spilling from the broken supports.

’Not into that fire.’

Her own braid slipped over her shoulder as she bent, the silverwood rings tapping lightly together while she found the shallow turn still open in the living growth.

The root line curled around the bridge’s broken edge, its narrow fold answering her touch with a pressure that ran painfully into the pathways beneath her wrist.

She eased it toward the safe stone beside her feet, making a passage no wider than a single child between the bending roots.

The first boy stared through the fold, his eyes widening when he saw her hand on the other side of the damaged span.

"One at a time," she told him.

"It is too small."

"For two of you, yes."

He looked behind him at the others, then back through the narrow gap while she held the root where his next step would land.

Hajin came down the far side of the broken arch behind the approach, the noise of the burning bridge turning his head before he reached her.

He slowed beside the last intact support, his six Rings bright above the bandaged hand he kept away from the hot rail.

"Eirwen, stay there while I get the next hold."

She glanced at his feet on the safe stone before looking back toward the children, the root trembling under the weight already leaning toward her fold.

"I planted my feet," she said, "staying sounds too passive."

The answer made his mouth move despite the smoke around them, the expression disappearing as he saw how the closing border pressed toward the trapped group.

"What do you need?"

"Keep that rail out of their landing."

He looked toward the leaning support beside her, following its angle before drawing the Chain into his right hand at the edge of the stone.

The leading links wrapped around the rail, pulling it clear of the narrow place where her folded root met the safe approach.

Eirwen felt the landing settle, shifting her left heel until her weight rested directly behind the living line she was holding beneath her palm.

The first boy came through with his shoulders turned sideways, his sleeve catching on a raised piece of bark before he pulled it free against his chest.

He stumbled onto the safe stone in front of her, the sudden arrival making him look back through the fold as though he had left part of himself behind.

"Your name?"

"Beli."

"Beli, take the next hand."

The boy crouched at once, putting his arm through the narrow opening while Eirwen kept the root from rolling under his weight.

A smaller hand caught his wrist, its grip tightening before the second child put a foot into the space where he had just crossed.

The girl came through with her face turned toward the root, blinking hard when Beli pulled her onto the stone beside him.

"Kedo," she said before Eirwen asked.

"Then help him."

They moved to either side of the landing, leaving the width of the fold clear while the next child reached toward their waiting hands.

Eirwen felt the bridge’s weight shift beneath her connection, the burning section sagging as the dead border began closing over its far end.

She leaned harder into her planted foot, the root biting against her palm while she kept the one-person passage from flattening between the two pressures.

The third child came through on her knees, her hands sliding across the safe stone before Kedo caught the back of her shirt.

A fourth followed so closely that Beli put his own shoulder between them, making the younger one pause before the fold could take both their weights together.

"Wait for her foot," he said.

Eirwen watched him look back toward the next child, his face set with the fierce concentration of somebody who had just discovered that being first meant work.

The fourth crossed once the landing cleared, bringing the fifth by the hand until the narrowing root made them turn their shoulders apart.

Eirwen lifted the fold’s edge just enough for the smaller child’s elbow, the effort sending a hot line through her wrist into the arm beneath her coat.

The heat made her fingers want to open, a sharp bodily demand she answered by lowering her shoulder closer to the hand holding the root.

Hajin’s Chain scraped against the rail beside her, its pull changing as the leaning support tried falling back over the children’s landing.

She could hear him breathing through the effort, the sound too close for her to miss when it caught painfully against his next movement.

"Husband, hold that lower edge."

His breath stopped for an instant at the word, his gaze catching hers before he shifted the Chain toward the place she meant.

The rail dragged clear of the fold’s lower lip, giving the fifth child enough room to pull a trapped shoe past the splintered wood.

Eirwen kept her eyes on that foot until it reached the stone, the relieved little kick of its owner bringing her a brief, fierce satisfaction.

Two children remained beyond the roots, the taller one standing behind the smallest while the border’s dead edge pressed closer to their backs.

The sixth child reached into the fold, stopping with his hand beside Beli’s when he realized the smaller child had refused to let go of his coat.

"Bring that hand with you," Eirwen told him.

He looked down at the grip against his cloth, then guided the small fingers around his wrist before turning sideways into the one-person gap.

Kedo caught his other hand from the landing, drawing him through while he kept his arm extended back toward the child still on the bridge.

The smallest one took a step because his wrist moved, then another when Beli reached past the sixth child’s shoulder toward her free hand.

Eirwen felt the root start tearing beneath the far support, its living line stretching thin enough that the pain climbed behind her elbow.

She pressed her knee against the safe stone, holding the shallow fold in place while the little girl tried lifting one foot over its last ridge.

The shoe caught beneath her own hem, the delay so small that Eirwen could hardly bear watching it while the root thinned against her hand.

"Lift your knee toward me," she said.

The child obeyed with a frightened sound, the trapped shoe coming free as Kedo drew the little hand closer to the landing.

Eirwen guided the root beneath the final step, keeping its edge level until both feet reached the stone inside Beli’s braced arms.

"Seven clear," Hajin said.

She let the fold close behind the last heel, withdrawing her palm as the dead border slammed across the place where the passage had been.

The impact ran through the bridge with the weight of a book shutting, its final sound cutting off the crackle from the far burning span.

Hajin pulled the Chain free of the rail once its fallen end rested safely outside the landing, the links clattering onto the stone beside his feet.

Eirwen stayed on one knee for a moment, her palm lifted against her chest while the seven children huddled together on the safe approach.

She could feel each torn length of the root in the ache beneath her skin, its vanished reach leaving her arm heavy enough to rest against her ribs.

The Court soil’s pouch was still there beneath her coat, its seal untouched when she checked it with the fingers of her other hand.

She settled it deeper against the lining, keeping its living contents away from the cold that had swept across the bridge when the border shut.

Hajin crouched beside her after storing the Chain, his gaze moving from her hand to the closed edge beyond the children’s shoulders.

"You kept them moving."

"They pulled each other."

She looked toward the two children nearest the landing, finding Beli still holding the smallest girl’s hand while Kedo brushed dust from her knees.

"Thank you, both of you."

Beli glanced at Kedo as though the praise belonged on her side, the girl looking back with the same uncertain expression before they both faced Eirwen again.

The smallest child opened one hand, revealing a pebble pressed so tightly against her palm that its shape had left a red mark in the skin.

She held it toward Eirwen, her arm stopping halfway until Eirwen brought her own hand close enough to receive the stone.

The pebble was warm from the child’s grip, its smooth edge resting against the part of Eirwen’s palm that the root had spared.

"From the road," the girl said.

"Then I will keep it with the others."

Eirwen threaded the pebble into the cord braid beside the sealed pouch, tightening its little loop before she let the tokens settle beneath her coat again.

Hajin watched her rise slowly from the landing, offering his unoccupied hand when the ache in her leg made her pause over the final movement.

She took the support long enough to find her feet, releasing it when she could stand squarely on the stone where the children had arrived.

A pair of refuge attendants came from the sheltered approach, stopping when Beli held up the hand of the smallest child to show who still belonged with him.

Eirwen gave them the count and the two pullers’ names, keeping the group together until the attendants understood which children had been helping the rest.

Beli waited for the smallest girl to take an attendant’s hand before releasing his own grip, his fingers opening slowly as the group moved toward shelter.

The bridge behind them stayed closed, its dead edge cutting across the route the loyalists had burned while the false sun’s blue light still touched the upper supports.

Hajin looked toward the next call from the lower approach, then back at Eirwen with a question already beginning to form behind his tired expression.

"What can you hold here?"

"This side until the children are under cover," she answered, her feet settling beside the closed border, "then ask me again."